Corruption

Dnipro’s Jewish community in the Privat case: did it launder funds?

Yesterday, the co-founder of the Privat group, Alexey Martynov, publicly accused his former partners, Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov, of laundering huge sums of money “through the charitable foundation of a religious organization in the city of Dnipro”. Today, the “Dnipropetrovsk Jewish Community” responded to these accusations, saying that it refutes the allegations. Komersant ukrainskyi has been looking into the matter with the help of the PrivatBank case materials, in particular the relevant court rulings available in the Register of Court Decisions.

Martynov’s statement

Oleksiy Martynov was once a partner of Ihor Kolomoisky, arrested today, and Gennady Bogolyubov, wanted by the GBI, in the so-called “Privat” business group. Today Martynov has become an opponent of his former business friends and makes public denunciations of them on a regular basis. Another one was made yesterday.

“I became aware of a daring fraudulent transaction, which for several years was carried out by my dishonest partners Bogolyubov and Kolomoisky. They used the charitable fund of one of the religious organizations of the city of Dnipro, in which they were founders, to launder funds stolen from the state. In total, more than five billion hryvnias were laundered through this fund,” Martynov said.

Statement of the Jewish Community of Dnipro

Although Martynov did not specifically name either the religious organization itself or the name of its fund, today everything became obvious.

In particular, on the official website of the Jewish Community of Dnipro there appeared a “Statement of the Charitable Foundation regarding groundless accusations.”

It says that “the Charity Fund “Dnipropetrovsk Jewish Community” with a long history and impeccable reputation”, allegedly became “an object of speculation”.

“Unfounded accusations against the fund appeared in the media with reference to statements by businessman Alexei Martynov. We do not know the motives of these publications, as well as the reasons for such statements by Alexei Martynov. This person has nothing to do with the activities of the charitable foundation. For almost 30 years of the Foundation’s work we have managed to help tens of thousands of people. We are proud of the results of our work. We are ready for any checks and will comprehensively assist law enforcement agencies,” the statement further reads.

The data of the investigation from the materials of the case of “PrivatBank”.

Obviously, the right or guilty in this story of high-profile accusations must ultimately be determined by law enforcement and the courts. However, the court rulings in the PrivatBank case show that the United Jewish Community of Ukraine is involved.

According to the OpenData portal, the owners and founders of the community are “MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY” – “JEWISH PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS”. And among their list there is, in fact, the above-mentioned “Charitable Foundation “Dnipropetrovsk Jewish Community”.

According to the Chief Detective Division of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine, in particular, the “United Jewish Community of Ukraine” was on the list of LLCs and FCs through which the funds of the JSC CB “PrivatBank” were laundered.

In total, we are talking about more than 5.8 billion UAH, which in the end, according to the version of the investigation, were withdrawn abroad.

“…non-cash funds in the amount of 5,877,765,263.20 UAH on account Number_1, which was opened by Person_4(Igor Kolomoisky, – ed.) in JSC CB “PrivatBank”, to legalize (launder) by transferring them to the address of LLC “FC Dnipro” (SDRPOU code 32813827) to account Number_2, to the own account of Person_4 (code Number_3) Number_4, to the address of “United Jewish Community of Ukraine” (USREOU code 21661668) to account Number_5 , LLC “Proton-21” (USREOU code 31672893) to account Number_6, JSC CB “PrivatBank” (MFO 14360570) to account Number_7, LLC “Yubi” (USREOU code 38204981) to account Number_8, LLC “FC Gambit” (USREOU code 30458125) to account Number_9, PJSC “NPK-Galichina” (USREOU code 00152388) to account Number_10, by replenishing own card account Number_11 with JSC CB “PrivatBank”, as well as bank account Number_12 with AT “Ayboks Bank” (MFO 322302) with subsequent transfer of funds to the accounts of non-resident companies Marks and Sokolov LLC (USA), Hughes Hubbard and Reed LLP (USA), Fieldfisher LLP (UK), Nomea law firm(Switzerland), opened in the respective foreign banks”, – stated in the resolution of Shevchenko district court.

The relevant ruling concerns the ESBU proceedings, in which Ihor Kolomoyskyy has already received suspicion.